Supply Chain Point: Solving Logistics Challenges with Nish George
22:08 Share

Struggling with scanning errors and peeling labels? Moving or reconfiguring your warehouse? Implementing a new WMS? The wrong labels can slow your operation down. Luckily, ID Label has durable, scannable barcode labels and signs built to last and keep your operation moving. Plus, if you need to get those labels installed, they've got it covered.

Their expert team installs rack labels, overhead signs, floor striping, and more with precision. So your warehouse operations continue uninterrupted. I've installed tens of thousands of labels in my career, and I wish I had someone else do it for me.

Get a free sample pack at ID label Inc.com because when they do the barcodes, you can do more. That's ID label Inc.com for a free sample pack and more information. The new warehouse podcast hosted by Kevin Lawton is your source for insights and ideas from the distribution, transportation and logistics industry. A new episode every Monday morning brings you the latest from industry experts and thought leaders.

And now, here's Kevin. Hey, it's Kevin of the New Warehouse Podcast, and I'm here at Supply Chain Point 2025. And joining me here, right next to me, is Nish George, and he is the CEO, owner of Fetch Fulfillment. That's right. He has a storied history in the operations world as well. So, Nish, finally we're getting you on the podcast. How are you? Thrilled to be here, man.

Have I ever told you how much I love you, Kevin? He told me five times before we started recording, but tell me again. Love you, Kevin. Love you. He's a great guy here. So tell us a little bit about your background because you have a pretty interesting history. You get a pretty interesting story here during our talk yesterday here at Spy Team Point, but tell us a little bit about your background and how that kind of ended up getting you to Fetch Fulfillment. Absolutely. Yeah.

So a while ago, I got obsessed with this thing called FIRE, Financial Independence and Retiring Early. And so... FIRE community, okay. Yes. And so I realized that there's this number, $1.2 million, that if I can get to that number, then I can support my family on a $48,000 a year stipend for the rest of my life. Interesting, okay. And so I was obsessed with that number early on. I worked as hard as I could. And then I hit that number and I blew right by it.

And then I was more miserable than I'd ever been in my life at that point. Because I tried taking some time off of work, and I hated it. I felt lost. Then I had to do some soul searching. And so I asked myself, okay, why am I actually here? What should I really be doing? And I thought about, to answer that question, who do I admire? And how do I become like those people? So I realized there's two people that I admire. One's Elon.

Love that guy. He's a maniac. I'm kind of like that too. And the other one, her name is Grace. She's my wife's little sister. Okay.

And if you go to her high school that she went to, you'll see posters of her on the wall. And in those posters, she's doing backflips with her eyes closed. And you might think, oh, that's weird. Normally you do backflips with your eyes open. But it turns out she's nearly blind, nearly deaf. I can see just fine. I can hear just fine. I can't do backflips. She's like running circles around me. And so...

If she had done nothing her entire life and just sat there and just took a disability check from the government, nobody would have said anything because that's a hard life. But that's not what she did. Instead, she worked super hard as a gymnast, first of all, then also studied super hard in school.

And for her to study hard in school, she went to public school. So they don't give out books in Braille in public school. They give out books in English. And so her dad spent hours every night translating from English to Braille. And then she spent hours every night reading all that Braille. And she became valedictorian of a high school, went to college, took five years, not four, but still graduated college again as valedictorian. Her first job was as teacher for disabled kids.

And now she's a state aid worker for disabled adults. So her dad drives her around North Carolina and she works with adults directly who have disabilities. And so I thought to myself, how can I even stand in the same room as this girl who has, with so little that she's been given, created all this good? Yeah. And me with all that I've been given, how can I just sit there and do nothing? I couldn't live with myself, right? Yeah, yeah. And so I realized, okay, I need a worthy cause. I need like a...

A worthy adversary, something that I can really apply myself to that'll carry me through the rest of my career. And so what I've kind of latched onto is logistics. There's just an ocean of problems here. We have really messed up, you know, logistics networks, as you can tell, we all saw during COVID. One person sneezed in China. We were always talking about challenges. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so with COVID, somebody sneezed in China, broke the port of Los Angeles, and everybody ran out of everything. Yeah.

It's kind of a broken system, I think, right? I think there's a lot of room for improvement. So I'm excited to fix some of this stuff. Yeah, absolutely. And you spent some time at Amazon, right, for a while. And you told us a little story yesterday about that. But tell us kind of like when you're... Because I feel like in talking to you and hearing some of your stories, it seems like there was maybe like a moment where...

your mind unlocked and you almost got like a like a third eye in a sense for seeing inefficiencies and waste and things like that so tell us a little bit about about that and how did your mind kind of get to that that place because if you never talked to him right i mean he's always like has this idea of like i want to do this and i want to do that and it's not like um

It's not just like a thinking thing. Like you know that he's going to do it, right? So tell us a little bit about where did that mindset start and how did that come about? What a great question. So actually, this one goes back to even a job before Amazon. I was a little baby operator. Yeah. And I had this ops director and she took me on this little tour of the warehouse once.

And that was the beginning of my love story with operations. She said, Nish, being an ops director is very easy. You get a little bit of elevation, walk up some stairs, if you can, and look down at your operation. And then try to find a pile of stuff that's not moving. If you see a pile of something that's not moving, it's a problem. Go fix that, and you're good.

It sounds really simple, but that is actually a very fundamentally hard thing to do. You're going to hear all kinds of excuses. You're going to hear that's just the way it's always been done. But if you can actually get an operation to pump properly...

And get, as soon as an order drops in, if you can get it out of your door, nobody can do that. Not a single person in this entire industry can do that today. There's blood clots everywhere. Yeah. All over the place. So if you can just focus on a couple of those fundamental principles like that, it'll carry you all the way through. And so I just started stacking up more and more of these realizations. And then I hit, I think, a critical mass at the end of my time at Amazon. I'm like, okay, this whole thing, we're going to burn it down.

Interesting. And so you have plans, right, to burn down Amazon, to take down UPS and all that. Yeah, yeah, that's right. But the evil master plan is here, which I don't think is evil. I think it's interesting to hear that thinking. So tell us...

What led you to, because you went out and you acquired Fetch. That's right. So tell us a little bit about what was the thinking there to go out and acquire somebody's 3PL and now try and build what you're building? Yeah. So I'm approaching all these problems from the demand side. So I always think, what is the problem that I'm trying to solve?

And it always is the case that the solutions exist, but nobody's stitching them together in the right way. I just find that over and over and over again, people are just not buying the right solutions. The solutions all exist. There's no new solution on the face of this earth. It's crazy, actually. So I'm latching on to a set of problems, and I'm kind of piecing them together. So let me actually tell you a different thing. Let me tell you about this thing called transhumanism.

So have you heard of transhumanism before? I have not. Okay. So transhumanism is the idea that one day we're going to be this

meld of meat and metal, right? So we're going to become this evolved kind of being and we're not going to be just constrained to meet things that just fall apart. And so it turns out that there's a group of billionaires that would very much like to live forever and they would like to become transhumans. But they have realized that going and trying to start a company whose only job is to get to a transhuman is guaranteed to fail.

because it requires way too many miracles to actually be able to get there. So instead, they looked at this as a constellation of different problems that need to be solved. They said, okay, we need to fix arthritis. We need to fix Alzheimer's. Oh, and heart attack. Someone's got to look at that too. And then they went and funded individual companies that are solving each of those things so that if you roll the tape forward 50 years, you have a little constellation of IP and you connect the dots and you've become a transhuman.

Interesting. So what I'm trying to do is stitch together that constellation of problems in logistics that as I solve piece by piece, I will have taken down the industry. That's the goal. Gotcha. Interesting. I can tell you about one of them. I guess first tell us how was acquiring 3PL the first step in that? Why was that the first move?

Yeah, so ultimately, I do want to redo last mile transportation. I believe that the end state is going to look like batch size one. Ultimately, when someone orders something off of a shelf, that item should pop off of the shelf onto a little red blood cell inspired thing that goes straight from that shelf to the consumer's door through a closed circulatory system and drops it off and comes back and gets the next thing. So we continue this flow.

And now this end state requires a shipper and a receiver and actually robots and tunnels. The receiver is the consumer. You can't change their behavior at all. It doesn't matter what you want to tell them. They're going to do what they want to do. And they're going to get lazier and lazier over time. That's just the law of nature, right? The robots and the tunnels, these are commodities. They exist. And you just have to buy them per robot and per mile. You don't have to own those things. There's plenty of companies that do exactly that. The thing that's the thing to own is the shipper.

If I control, if I'm the one making the decision, how do I get this package out my door? I hold all the cards. And so I needed to control a 3PL. That was part of the journey, like step one. And so coming into that, I had never been a CEO before. I'd never raised any money before. I had never touched a pallet before. I had a whole lot of math on paper. But I wasn't the natural fit to run a 3PL. And so it turns, so then I had this thing where

Everything that you want, there's a process to get it. Just follow the process and get the outcome. So I'm like, all right, who's done this thing? Who's become the CEO of a 3PL? So I could buy one or I could build one. Building one is a hard thing. A lot of people fail. It's a high-risk thing. You could go broke yourself. Or you could just buy one, and you don't even have to use your money. You could do somebody else's money. So I found this mechanism called a search fund, which is a mini private equity instrument. You raise some money from investors, investors,

Then you look for a company to buy while being on payroll of those investors. Once he finds a company to buy, you do a second call for capital and then you buy it with their money. So that's what I did. I'm like, all right, I guess I need to raise the search fund. I asked someone how they did it. I said, okay, great. Did that thing. Raised the search fund, found a great 3PL to buy and bought it. Like that whole thing was done within like months, less than a year. Really interesting. And this was fairly recent too, like in the last two,

Yeah, I bought Fetch, well, back then it was Fusion Fulfillment in May of 2023. Yeah, so tell us a little bit about, because you mentioned you've never been the CEO before. That's right. You've never been the CEO of 3PL before. That's right, never touched the pallet. That's quite a culture shock, man. Yeah, yeah, so what has been the biggest surprise, maybe, of the last two years when you're going down this journey? Oh.

the people because until then I'd only been in the ivory tower with other people with all these advanced degrees talking about equations and you know theories and then I get to the actual floor and the people that work for me like a typical day for me I'll have a woman crying on my shoulder about her abusive ex-husband in Spanish I'll have Google Translate in the other hand it's like what is she saying what is she saying

I have people who've been in and out of prison, people who've got drug addiction charges. It's a rough group. I had never seen anyone like that, actually met anyone like that until now I have a bunch of them that work for me. And what's really interesting is they need a leader. They need someone that they can look up to. That's a huge thing for them. They need someone they can admire.

and trust. And I had to become that person. That was actually a lot of growth for me. My first peak, I'll tell you, I had one really bad day. I went back home and I screamed into my pillow for an hour straight. My wife was like, I need a new husband. I lost him. He's gone. Oh no. Oh man. So tell us a little bit about, because you mentioned you had to learn how to work with and deal with people and lead the people. So what was the

what was the biggest thing in that journey that you learned that you would give advice to other people that are either leaders now or they're inspiring to be leaders like yourself? I mean, what would be the biggest kind of piece of advice there?

What a great question. So a lot of this comes down to fairness and empathy. I had this woman who got super angry and walked off the job without even having a chat with me after she learned that someone else who had just joined was making 50 cents more, right? I've been there. Yeah. And at first I was so mad. I was like, just talk to me. We can fix that. But then I realized they want to be treated fairly and they want to know that they're being treated fairly. Yeah.

And I need to come up with a structure that feels fair. And so it shouldn't be...

that I can't trust him to pay me right. They should feel that I can trust him, things are fair. And with compensation, it's hard because the best outcome is everybody in your organization says, if you put all the pay on the wall, people would say, I wish I was paid more, but gosh darn it, that's fair, right? That's the best outcome you can get with pay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's an interesting story because I mean, I'd tell it the same, especially with the pandemic happening. Oh, man. We had started a new facility. Yeah.

I guess it was like 2018, we were in 2018, and at that time, like, labor rates were so much lower, right? So we had people that were still with us, but then having so much trouble getting people to work for them, we had to increase, increase, increase, and then, you know, we're bringing temp in at, you know, somebody that's like 19, 18 hours, and somebody that's been there for two years is at like 15, and they find out, and it's like this whole thing, but that's like...

For a larger organization, that's a huge reset. Now you have to level out everybody's wages and everything. That's like a huge undertaking. And word travels fast. And so she made a huge fuss before she left. She's like, they treat everyone new. There's no secrets in the warehouse. Exactly. Everyone talks. And so you have to get good at that stuff. And I was not good at it to start. Actually, I don't think outside of, I think,

Three people out of our 15, everybody else I've hired. So the whole place rinsed. Yeah. Nice. And some of that is down to me. I had to become a better leader. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. So now tell us, like, because you have an interesting view, I think, on the logistics space in general. And I know you're very interested in different technologies. Yeah. Exploring different solutions. And, you know, you're not...

I get the sense that you're not one that's just like, you know, if we're shipping, we're good. You want to improve? You want to improve? You want to improve? So tell us a little bit about like, what are you seeing? What technologies right now are standing out to you in the space that are catching your attention? Because you mentioned earlier, too, that like there's nothing new out there, really. But what is catching your attention?

Oh, there's so it's crazy because we're currently onboarding into three different AI solutions that are changing our business. Absolutely. Yeah. So one is so there's many problems that people don't even realize is a perfect fit for AI.

One is actually customer success. And so, you know, in 3PL world, I have the contract with FedEx, with UPS. And so when I ship a package on behalf of my customer, if that package goes missing, FedEx won't talk to the customer. They won't talk to the consumer. They only want to talk to me because I'm the one with the contract and I'm paying FedEx.

And so if there's a loss or damage claim, my team has to file it. Yeah. Right? And so we're doing this ground game constantly of, like, fighting about one package here that's gone missing out of the thousand plus that we'll ship a day. This one's missing. That one's missing. It's not our fault. But we still have to get involved in that process.

process right so now we've got AI coming out that can file a claim for you and give you a weekly status update in a slack channel right we've got an AI where if a customer calls in it can talk to them like an actual human understand the problem hang up call someone on my floor hang up call someone that they've said oh I don't have the answer talk to that person they'll call that person get the answer and then call the customer back and that's fully AI

The stuff I'm seeing is crazy. So that is one thing. Another AI solution is actually with managing employees. And so we have all the security footage, but when my folks punch in, they're punching in on their phone. You can punch in from your couch at home. No one's looking at them. Yeah, it's kind of bad, right? What I'd like to do is give everybody a raise, but say...

Now I'm going to only pay you when you're actually on the floor working. And I can do that with AI reading my security camera footage. And so we're onboarding with a vendor that does exactly that. Interesting, interesting, interesting. So you'll know exactly when they're in a work area, basically. When they're working. When they're not working, if you're in the bathroom on your phone versus if you're out for a smoke for the sixth time today. You know, I want to pay people when they're working, but I don't want to pay them when they're not working. I only get paid for delivering outcomes for my customers. You know, same deal. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Interesting, interesting there. Yeah.

And I think it's really interesting to talk to you always and hear your perspective as well. So I'm curious, we're here at Supply Chain Point, so this is your first time here. Tell us a little bit about what you think about the event. This is a really unique event. I haven't seen anything like this. It's so heavily...

curated and thought through and they really really care about a great experience for each person so they're constantly asking for feedback and how do we improve you know they've set up these like get to know each other icebreaker type events that i find incredible like the original plan was for us to go kayaking through the mangroves and the everglades right yeah uh then you know instead we did top golf because of rain but that i don't fault them for that of course uh

You know, we had this, like, salsa-making competition, the heat-up cornhole competition, right? I don't know what they cooked up for tonight, but that's incredible stuff, you know? So they, like, the way that they go into it very intentionally is something I don't ever see. Like, a trade show is a trade show. No one's having any intention on anything, right? Yeah. Yeah. This is not a mass market kind of a deal. And so they're trying to, like, really curate meaningful conversations. I think it works. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're having one here. Yeah, I think so. I'm pretty sure. Sounds good, definitely. And tonight is casino night.

Amazing. So really appreciate you. I played to win, Kevin. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. We're going to at least defeat you. So it's really great to have you here to talk to me. And if people want to learn more about Fetch Fulfillment, what's the best way to do that? You know, honestly, you can go to GoFetchFulfillment.com. You can find me on LinkedIn, Nish George.

And we have an open-door policy. If anybody wants to come down and visit in Lakewood, New Jersey, come on down. It's the showroom kind of warehouse. Love to show you around. Yeah. Let me know if you're going because I'm like 20 minutes away. So let's just do a visit. That's right. All right, sir. Good to have you on. You've been listening to The New Warehouse Podcast with Kevin Lahti. Subscribe and check us out online at thenewwarehouse.com.

Enjoyed this episode? Make sure you are subscribed to the podcast and for more content from The New Warehouse, find us on LinkedIn and YouTube. Links to subscribe can be found in the show notes and for everything The New Warehouse, head to thenewwarehouse.com.